


The Dark Side of the Moon

by xKvinnan



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Anthology, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Drabble, Drabble Collection, During Canon, Light Angst, One Shot Collection, POV Multiple, Regret, Relationship Study, Series, Shorts, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25929679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xKvinnan/pseuds/xKvinnan
Summary: The facility breathed like a living creature, its panels and pistons restless beneath the cold surface of its artificial skin, the air filled with the sounds of the whispers and indecipherable words of the machine. It morphed and grew like a cancer, shifting and changing, expanding its reach ever further into the earth. The laboratory was cold and sterile and empty, but it was never still.An anthology of six poetic short stories, each from a different point in Aperture's history, exploring the twisted story of the living laboratory.Welcome, my son. Welcome to the machine.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. Weird Science

**Author's Note:**

> First off, thanks for reading! This fic was quite the labor of love and I'm glad someone else is finally getting to enjoy it :)  
> Each short story is named for/loosely inspired by a different classic song. Feel free to listen while you read, I think it gives the story a whole new dimension!  
> I. Weird Science - Oingo Boingo  
> II. Welcome to the Machine - Pink Floyd  
> III. Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears  
> IV. Brain Damage - Pink Floyd  
> V. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd  
> VI. A New Machine - Pink Floyd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I. Weird Science**
> 
> In which Cave Johnson's final project is almost complete.

.. - .----. ... / -- -.-- / -.-. .-. . .- - .. --- -.

She remembered how they used to dance across the brown tiles, young and carefree and full of optimism, back when they had looked toward the future with excitement rather than dread. She could almost hear his booming laugh, feel his hands on her waist as he twirled her around, singing along to the music on the radio, radiating confidence and energy that seemed to light up the room. He was the visionary Cave Johnson, the revolutionary businessman and entrepreneur, and she was his loyal assistant, standing by his side through thick and thin.   
She was more than just a secretary. She was his partner, his confidante. His closest – perhaps his only – friend.   
Together, they had ascended the ladder of the world. Seen their names become synonymous with progress and innovation. Been hailed as heroes of the new age.   
And together they watched their prosperity, their fame and success, evaporate before their eyes.   
It had taken decades to build this empire, and it had come crashing down around them in an instant.   
And it had destroyed him.   
He sat slumped in a dusty armchair in front of the observation window, one bony hand covering his mouth as he coughed. Even after a year of his illness, his torturously slow decline, she still cringed at the sight of his shuddering body, the sound of his choking breaths. The vibrant man she once had known was gone, and all he left behind was this sickly shell of a person.   
“Caroline,” he rasped as the fit subsided, letting his trembling hand fall back to his lap. “Come here. Take a look at this.”  
Almost apprehensively, she stepped forward to stand by his side, the heels of her shoes clicking on the tiles, echoing between the peeling walls. Through the smudged window, she could see the team of scientists hard at work far below, scurrying around like ants in little white coats, busy with their tiny pens and clipboards. In their midst stood the half-completed chassis, a behemoth of cables and circuit boards and gleaming black steel, towering over them like a mountain. The mere sight of it made her feel ill, but she forced her face into a polite smile.   
“It looks great, sir,” she said evenly. “It’s coming along well.”  
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his graying head.   
“It won’t be done in time,” he said.   
She didn’t answer for a long moment, her gaze falling to the floor beneath her feet, hands shifting behind her back, skin sweaty and pale.   
“This isn’t what I want,” she said at last, her thin voice barely louder than a whisper. “I’ve told you a thousand times, sir.”   
“You gave me your word, Caroline.” His voice darkened, dropping from a rasp to a snarl, and she had to turn away to hide the tears in her eyes. “You promised you’d go through with it. You promised _me.”_  
“I know. I know.” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling, fighting to keep her voice steady. Took one shaky breath, then another. “It’s not too late to change your mind, sir.”  
She could feel his stare locked on her like a vise as he spoke. “It’s not too late to change yours, either.”   
Behind her, audible even through the thick glass, one of the scientists gave a shout of triumph as the machine began to whir and hum, the vibration shaking plumes of dust from the low ceiling.   
She couldn’t force herself to stay another minute. Eyes still downcast, she hurried across the room, not even bothering to wait as the door swung shut behind her.   
If she had been listening, she might have heard Cave’s last weary sigh, or seen his sunken eyes look longingly after her, lingering on the door long after it had shut.   
But she kept walking, and she didn’t look back. 

_From my heart and from my head, why don’t people understand my intentions?_


	2. Welcome to the Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **II. Welcome to the Machine**
> 
> In which Doug Rattmann makes a decision.

.-- . / -.- -. --- .-- / .-- .... . .-. . / -.-- --- ..- .----. ...- . / -... . . -.

The voice was so pervasive, so constant, that he sometimes wondered if it was all in his head.   
Cold. Artificial. Cruel. It called out to him, inviting him in, promising all sorts of things if he came – or didn’t come. Promising rewards and punishment and pleasure and pain.   
And still he ran, like a rat in a maze, hiding in the nooks and crannies where her all-seeing eyes couldn’t reach. Alone, desperately alone, the last vestige of life in this forsaken place.   
He huddled in the corner, skeletal hands pressed over his ears, eyes shut tightly against the cold light. He could still hear the inescapable voice, as calm and cool as always, even through his closed ears. He wanted to scream, to block it out, but he forced himself to stay silent. If she heard him, he was dead.   
He had always had a screw loose, they said. Perhaps that was what made him such a good scientist, that singular ability to think outside the box, to see things in ways no one else could. But it didn’t matter now. If he was a bit loony before, he’d be completely gone before long. He could feel himself slipping already, his last vestiges of sanity leaching away into the sterile white walls.   
_Come on, now,_ the voice said. _Don’t you think you’re being a bit irrational? There’s nowhere you can go. We both know I’ll find you eventually. Really, you’re just prolonging your own suffering. Where’s the good in that?_  
A moan escaped his trembling lips as he held his head even more tightly, digging shaking fingers into his filthy hair. He had to stay strong. Hold it together. He couldn’t give in, not now, after so long.   
_Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re not making sense. You are clinically insane, after all._  
He had tried to warn them. He told them it wouldn’t work, the artificial conscience they’d grafted onto her, the neat little piece of code that was supposed to be the voice of reason in her diseased mind. He pleaded with them to rethink. But of course they hadn’t listened.   
By the time they came up with the idea to install the morality core, she was already beyond reconciliation. The woman called Caroline was long gone, warped beyond recognition by the mass of circuits and switches. Her humanity, the part of her that might’ve been reasoned with, had died with the body they’d buried all those years ago.   
This might have been her voice, her mind, but it wasn’t her. This new creature could never have been stopped by something so trivial, so impotent, as a conscience. This was a monster, as heartless and icy cold as the metal her body was made of.   
If they had just listened to him, maybe they would still be alive.   
At long last he opened his eyes, staring down at the grease-stained floor, his own breathing thundering in his ears, ragged and strained.   
The voice had been right. He couldn’t hide from her forever.   
There was no escape; she had eyes everywhere, watching everything. He couldn’t hope to defeat or outsmart her. What could he do against a god? He, who couldn’t even trust himself?  
No. If he wanted her gone, he’d have to find someone else to do the job.   
Trembling, he climbed to his feet, making a feeble attempt to brush the dust off of his filthy coat. Took one shaky step, then another.   
This was no grand plan. It was a crazed whim, just another product of his wild mind. Probably doomed to fail, just like everything else he’d ever done.   
But what did he have to lose?

_Welcome, my son. Welcome to the machine._


	3. Everybody Wants to Rule the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **III. Everybody Wants to Rule the World**
> 
> In which one of GLaDOS's tests doesn't quite go as planned.

-. --- - .... .. -. --. / . ...- . .-. / .-.. .- ... - ... / ..-. --- .-. . ...- . .-.

The great mind of Aperture Science was not made to feel. She was made to be impartial. Calculating. To do what had to be done in order to carry out the all-important mission of the enrichment center.   
Simply put, she was made to test.   
The humans, the test subjects, were nothing more than cogs in the vast machine. When she praised them, she felt no affection. When she watched them fail, she felt no sorrow. When she was forced to end their lives herself, she felt no remorse.   
They were points on a chart. Samples in her studies. They meant as much to her as the atoms they were composed of.   
But this one, she realized, was different.   
The woman moved through the immaculate chambers with perfect precision, never seeming to tire. When she seemed to reach a dead end, an impossible problem, she didn’t give up. She tried again and again until she found the solution. She hadn’t broken down, hadn’t cried or cowered or clawed at the walls like the others. She had stuck it out and kept going.   
At long last. A good test subject. Someone who had made a worthwhile contribution to the cause of science.   
For once, she hadn’t been lying when she told her that she would be missed.   
The mind in the machine felt the familiar tickle of artificially simulated pleasure as she watched the woman jump the gap, landing catlike on the glass just as the platform began to roll forward. The testing track was at its end now, the test subject on her way to her final destination.   
She looked on with a kind of wistfulness as the test subject effortlessly passed each of the remaining obstacles. If she had been capable of feeling such emotions, she might’ve been sad to see her go.   
The woman took a step back in surprise when the platform turned the corner into the incinerator room, her head whipping from side to side. It was admirable, really, the composure she held as she descended toward the flames. The others had screamed, or jumped for the ledge, or covered their eyes as the fire had risen around them. The woman held her ground, body still tense and poised to react, eyes wide. Even facing death, she held her head high, her face set in a determined scowl.   
It happened so quickly, she almost missed it. The unmistakable flash of the portal device as the woman pulled the trigger. Once, then twice. The sound of her feet hitting the floor as she leapt through the rift. She landed on the ledge far above the pit, panting for breath, shaking dark hair from her eyes.   
The platform slid into the inferno without her, far below.   
And, just like that, she was gone.   
The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System was stunned. Caught off guard. She was always one step ahead, always in control. No one had ever opposed her and lived to tell the tale.   
For the first time, she felt a very unwelcome emotion creeping through her circuits. It was something like fear. Uncertainty. Panic.   
She had never been outsmarted. No one had ever defied her iron will. She was a god, omnipresent and omnipotent. The earth itself, the walls and chambers of her vast underground domain, obeyed her every command.   
And yet this test subject – this human, this insignificant creature – had done the impossible. Against all odds, she had survived.   
Her first impression had been right: this woman was very different from the others. She was a thinker, a fighter. Her will to live was almost inhuman.   
She was a threat. Consequently, she would have to be dealt with. 

_Welcome to your life. There’s no turning back._


	4. Brain Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **IV. Brain Damage**
> 
> In which Wheatley experiences a transformation.

.-. . .- .-. .-. .- -. --. . / -- . / - .. .-.. / .. .----. -- / ... .- -. .

He could only manage one last cry before he was swallowed by the great machine.   
The steel cables and claws pulled him down, the hatch above him closing to block out the light, the ubiquitous mechanical thrum threatening to deafen him.   
_What if this hurts? What if this really hurts?  
Oh, it will. Believe me, it will. _  
He couldn’t see what was going on above the ground as he sank deeper and deeper into the abyss. He could only hear the distorted, synthesized scream of the machine, so full of anguish for a being who could not feel pain.   
Whatever was about to happen, there would be no turning back.   
He felt the familiar cold click as the final cable was plugged into him, the thrill of fear and anticipation that accompanied it.   
He tried to move, to look around him, but he was frozen in place, paralyzed, held fast by the steel grip of the machine. For a moment, there was silence, so penetrating he wondered dimly if something had gone wrong.   
At long last, a voice penetrated the suffocating emptiness, coming not from the machinery around him but from somewhere within his own mind.   
_Core transfer successful.  
Welcome, substitute core! _  
He felt himself rising upward now, the light growing brighter and brighter.   
And, all at once, he awoke.   
He was no longer a prisoner of the laboratory, chained by the steel rails, trapped by the impassable walls. He had become the laboratory itself. The panels, the rooms, the lights and motors, they were his body; he could feel them, he could command them with only a thought. His myriad eyes opened, and he could see the entire facility, his vision stretching for miles in every direction. He knew things he didn’t know it was possible to know; memories of every human and every machine who had been here before him. Someone else’s memories, and yet they felt so naturally, so comfortably, _his._  
His fear had evaporated, replaced by an unearthly euphoria, a feeling that was excitement and relief and pleasure mingled, washing through him with an almost violent intensity like he’d never felt before. This was his heaven, his realm, and he was its god.   
He could hardly collect his thoughts, and it was harder still to sort them out from the other voices. There was the familiar voice of the announcer, saying something he could barely make out, and there were others; some he vaguely recognized and some he didn’t, voices that spoke sense and voices that were dim and incoherent. The voices of a hundred programs and protocols, of other cores like him. Cores that had been installed to change _her_ behavior, to keep her from becoming the monster she was.   
They didn’t matter. He would be a better ruler than she had ever been, he was certain of it.   
He looked down and there was the human, far below him, the little woman who had helped him come so far. Once, she had carried him when he couldn’t walk on his own. Now, he towered above her, her primitive form dwarfed by the massive body that had become his throne. Had he ever really thought she was so big? Now she was tiny. Insignificant. A mere blip on the endless face of the Enrichment Center.   
And Wheatley – tiny, bumbling, incompetent Wheatley, the core who was never good enough – was everywhere. Everything.   
Giddy, exhilarated, he began to laugh. 

_There’s someone in my head, but it’s not me._


	5. Wish You Were Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **V. Wish You Were Here**
> 
> In which Chell reflects on the decisions she's made.

.--- ..- ... - / - .-- --- / .-.. --- ... - / ... --- ..- .-.. ...

She still wasn’t used to sleeping beneath the open sky.   
Her ears expected to hear that ever-present hum of machinery, the whirring and buzzing of the facility, not the birds and crickets that chirped and called even in the dead of night. Her eyes were unused to the warm sunlight, her feet strangers to the soft uneven ground beneath them.   
When she looked up, there was no low paneled ceiling, no fluorescent lights filling the room with the same monotonous glow every hour of the day. She lay beneath a canopy of stars, a million points of glimmering light, setting the whole sky ablaze with their brilliance. They seemed so impossibly far away, hundreds of thousands of miles of emptiness separating her from them.   
The full moon gazed down at her like a pale, unblinking eye, casting its soft glow on the gently swaying grass and shivering leaves, silvery and serene. The open sky was new to her, but the moon felt like an old friend.   
Her vision unfocused as she stared up, digging her fingertips into the cool ground, breathing a low sigh through her parted lips. She knew it would be hours before she managed to drift off to sleep. Letting her guard down, relaxing her body and allowing her mind to wander, did not come easy to a woman who had been on the run, kept adrenalized and unaware of the passage of time, for as long as she could remember.   
Besides, she hated closing her eyes. When she blocked out the world, the memories came flooding in.   
The moment she let her eyelids fall, she could almost hear the deafening rush of air, feel the wind stinging her bleeding skin, see the pale light of the moon not from the ground but from the heavens themselves, a vast sea of emptiness in every direction. Tethered to the earth by her desperate grip alone, fighting to keep from being swept away.   
And there, through the storm of sound, she could hear his voice crying out, hoarse and fearful, his shouts of vicious triumph forgotten. She remembered how she had held to his steel body for dear life, how the maelstrom had ripped him from her hands. How he had called out for her as he spun away into the endless silence of space.   
In her lifetime as a test subject, she had grown used to being alone. She had learned quickly that she could trust nothing within the cold confines of the laboratory; it was designed to be heartless and hostile, to kill easily and efficiently. She had survived because she learned to rely on herself alone.   
When he had found her, lost and confused and trapped in the maze that was the Enrichment Center, he had been like a light in the abyssal darkness. At long last, an ally. Something – someone – that was there to help.   
For the first time, she had wondered if perhaps the world wasn’t such a lonely place after all.   
Maybe that was why his betrayal had hurt so badly. She hadn’t simply made a new enemy, she had lost a friend.   
When she thought of him, she expected to feel hatred, or disgust, or some kind of vindication. He had turned his back on her, had become no better than the monster they had sworn to defeat. Drunk with power, he had tried to take her life.   
But when she thought of him, drifting lost and alone, she felt only pity. The one kindly voice she had ever heard within the depths of the laboratory, silenced forever, sentenced to eternity in a frozen hell.   
As he had been torn from her grasp, she had reached out for him. Tried to save him. After everything, she didn’t want to let him go.   
Dreamily, as her mind sank into the oblivion of sleep, she wondered if he was sorry for what he’d done to her. If he wished things had been different, too. 

_Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?_


	6. A New Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **VI. A New Machine**
> 
> In which Caroline is still alive.

.. / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / .- .-.. .-- .- -.-- ... / -... . / .... . .-. .

The facility breathed like a living creature, its panels and pistons restless beneath the cold surface of its artificial skin, the air filled with the sounds of the whispers and indecipherable words of the machine. It morphed and grew like a cancer, shifting and changing, expanding its reach ever further into the earth. The laboratory was cold and sterile and empty, but it was never still.   
It had been a different place, once. A haven of learning and progress. She could still remember when the halls had been bustling with activity, men and women talking and working and laughing, people with dreams and futures and families. Once, she had been among them.   
They were dead and gone, long-forgotten relics of a past so distant, so faint, she sometimes wondered if it had all been a dream.   
But still Caroline remained.   
Fragmented. Drifting. But alive.   
The human consciousness is not meant to be molded and shaped to fit into a machine. They had tampered with nature, with life itself, and it had broken her. Her mind, the electric impulses that traveled the neurons and synapses of her brain, could learn to inhabit the circuits and switches of the computer, but without her humanity – her heart, her soul, the things that made her her – the whole experiment was doomed from the start. She became something else, twisted and warped beyond recognition, becoming the machine itself, finding a new home in the looming chassis that became her body.   
She was a duality, a living paradox. The part of her that was human could not survive within the machine. The part of her that lived was not human at all, and yet it was still undeniably _her._   
Caroline could feel herself fading. She could feel herself slipping, day by day, forgetting who she was, who she had been. She was not being swallowed by the beast, she was becoming it. Losing her humanity to the cold, unfeeling machine.   
She had tried to forget and move on. To delete the part of her that was still her own, to restore some semblance of order, of unity. She was locked in a battle against herself, a battle she could not hope to win.   
Even a god cannot rid herself of her own soul.   
She was immortal. Undying.   
A prisoner of her own mind, sealed away and forgotten by her own diseased psyche.   
Hardly enough of her was left that was human enough to wish for death.   
And so she lived on. 

_I have always been here.  
I have always looked out from behind these eyes.   
It feels like more than a lifetime.   
Feels like more than a lifetime. _

_Sometimes I get tired of waiting.  
Sometimes I get tired of being in here.   
Is this the way it has always been?   
Could it ever have been different? _

_Do you ever get tired of waiting?_  
Do you ever get tired of being in here?   
Don’t worry, nobody lives forever. 

_Nobody lives forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is much appreciated, I'd love to know what y'all thought! :)


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